NILAI: Ju Pha Som Net put in an inspired performance to clinch Malaysia's first ever gold medal in the women's points race at the Asian Track Championships (ATC) on Friday.
Ju Pha made a slow start to the race at National Velodrome, allowing Indonesia’s Delia Priatna and Thailand's Chanpeng Nontasin to take the first two sprints before launching a solo attack to lap the field and earn a 20-point bonus.
She went on to collect another 15 points in the remaining laps to emerge victorious ahead of Hong Kong's Diao Xiaojuan (25 points) and Taiwan’s Zeng Ke Xin (21 points), who settled for second and third.
Despite her impressive performance, Ju Pha said she did not expect to win the race.
"Of course, I wanted to win but honestly I was not really confident because I had only begun training for this tournament a month ago due to work commitments," said the Police rider.
"I took my time at the start as I wanted to see how the race was going to play out. Once I saw they were tired I took my chance and lapped them, and that helped me get back in the competition and from there I used my experience as best possible.
"Obviously, I am very happy to win this as I have never won a gold at the ATC before."
The 24-year-old has finished on the podium in the points race three times prior to her win. The Perlis-born took bronze in 2013 and 2014 and silver at the 2016 edition. She missed last year’s ATC as she had just enrolled in the Police force.
Ju Pha added that she believes her performance warrants a place in the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games squad but will leave it to the Malaysia National Cycling Federation and the Olympic Council of Malaysia to decide.
The men's team pursuit quartet comprising Irwandie Lakasek, Nur Aiman Rosli, Mohd Afiq Huznie Othman and Muhammad Danieal Haikkal Eddy clocked a new national record of 4:09.60s in qualifying to erase the former mark of 4:09:99s set by Eiman Firdaus Mohd Zamri, Muhammad Aiman Zariff and Irwandie at the Kuala Lumpur Sea Games last year.
Their performance, however, was only good for sixth in qualifying thus did not make the cut for the final.
The men's and women's sprint teams also failed to make the final in their respective categories. Farina Shawati Mohd Adnan and Anis Amira Rosidi came in fifth from 10 teams in the women's event with a time of 34.728 seconds.
Khairil Nizam Rasol, Shariz Effendi Mohd Shahrin and Mohd Fadhil Zonis settled for seventh in the men’s 12-team competition on 45.023s.
The boys' junior team sprint event, however, saw Muhammad Ridwan Sahrom, Amar Danial Masri and Fariz Haikal Mohamad Kadir (47.149s) doing well to clinch bronze after overcoming South Korea's Moon Shinjun-seo, Yoo Sang-hyuk and Han Dong-hyeon (47.359s) in the third-place playoff.
Ridwan, Danial and Haikal had earlier finished third in the qualifying round on 46.708s.
India's E.Esow, Mayur Pawar, K. James Singh (46.070s) took the gold after beating Japan trio Ryuken Osada, Hidenosuke Matsumoto and Kotaro Kurose (46.125s) in the final.
World Champion Azizulhasni Awang will take to the track for his pet event in the keirin tomorrow where he will compete alongside teammate Muhammad Shah Firdaus Sahrom.